


Your Self & Yourself

by kremisiusaclassi



Category: Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 4
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Far Harbor, Gen, Self-Discovery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-23
Updated: 2016-05-23
Packaged: 2018-06-10 07:59:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,527
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6946597
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kremisiusaclassi/pseuds/kremisiusaclassi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There were things she didn't think about, before DiMA called them into question. Now, she thought about them a lot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Your Self & Yourself

**Author's Note:**

> Far Harbor is Good and I wrote a fic because of it. 
> 
> This is a canon divergent fic, so the way things worked out with the Institute is different. 
> 
> If you want to see some notes on the way I thought it all out (though it changed a lot) as well as what my Sole Survivor looks like, check out my tumblr blog kenobiwon in my "hana littlefeather" tag.

It had been stuck in her mind, ever since Acadia. Ever since meeting DiMA. At first, she had thought his questions slightly presumptuous - was there truly no person who appeared at the summit that wasn’t contemplating their identity? They were there to find someone who was, but that didn’t mean that struggle was hers to share. But all the same, it had stuck, like a particularly vexing puzzle.

She went over her own memories. She thought at length about her dreams. She was supposed to be resupplying during this short trip back to the Commonwealth, and yet she had spent most of it staring vacantly out a window, contemplating herself. It was something that made her feel entirely too narcissistic. It was a selfish endeavor. And even in knowing that she was ignoring her companions - ignoring even Hancock, who was partly confused and partly angry and mostly sad - the questions she had were ones that were critically important.

Before, she hadn’t put much thought into her past. The Pre-War part, that is. It was too fresh, too raw. The loss was too real, the pain was an open wound. But the more she thought on it currently, with a wealth of new experiences between that loss and the person she was now, it became harder to avoid the truth of the matter: she had no memories of before the war, save the one. The kitchen, with her wife. Her daughter. Codsworth. The Vault-tec Rep, the bombs falling, the whirlwind sprint to the Vault. There was nothing - nothing at _all_ \- before that day. And her dreams had always been surreal and lucid.

“Kid,” a drawl broke through her thoughts. She turned, at once taking in Valentine.

“Hey, Nick,” she answered.

“We gotta get back to the Harbor at some point soon, you know.”

“Yeah. I know,” she replied, sighing. Then, she stood, stretched, wound her long braid around her shoulders. “I have one thing I need to do before we go, however. And I’d like you to come with me, if you could.”

“Got somethin’ to do with the way you’ve been thinkin’ so hard smoke’s been comin’ out your ears?” He asked, tilting his head. At that angle, she could see all the gears working in his throat, and for a moment she felt like it was her throat, and she was choking.

“Yes, very much so,” she said. “I need to go back to the Vault. There’s something I need to see. If it’s not there, then we can go back to the Harbor. If it is, however… then we may need to take a small series of trips before we return.”

“You’ve been stuck on what DiMA said.” It wasn’t a question. Nick, for the moment, looked mildly annoyed - or as annoyed as he ever managed to look.

She quirked a small smile. “You _are_ a detective.”

“Look, Hana, if it helps, I’m pretty sure you’re not a synth,” he said. “But if you need to go back to the Vault, let’s go. I’m with you.”

“Thanks, Nick. Let’s… head up the hill, then.”

*

The Vault elevator rumbled down. She clenched and unclenched her hands as it went, closing her eyes tight when it squealed as it brought them deep into the ground. She had no problem with Vaults in general - she had gone to 88 many times to help them and to trade, had saved Nick from Malone, had brought Cait to 95 with no problems. But this Vault had people in it that she had vague knowledge of and a vivid picture of their corpses. And even more important than that was the existence of Nora. Shot dead while half-awake, cold from the cryo and death and being frozen again after death. Hana had taken the wedding ring off her finger when she’d stumbled from the Vault, and then closed her back in her pod. The death of her wife hurt, but it would have hurt even more if her face began to rot.

She took a deep breath as the elevator rattled to the ground, and the cage door opened. Nick put a hand on her shoulder, and she nodded, stepped forward. She could handle this. She had fought creatures thrice her size. She could handle this crypt.

The Vault was in the same state she had left it in. Dead radroaches, skeletons. Dust.

“You’re hyperventilating,” Nick said. “Maybe we should leave. You don’t need -”

“I do, though, Nick,” she said, voice hard. “I don’t remember anything other than that one day when the bombs fell. I don’t remember anything else. There’s nothing there. I know things, but I only have a single memory. It… it doesn’t make sense. I need things to start making sense.”

“Alright,” he replied with a rather sage nod. “I’m on your side, kid. Let’s figure this mystery out.”

“Thanks, Nick,” she pulled him into a quick and hard hug. “There are two different sets of cryo chambers. Nora and I were in the second. I’ll lead the way.”

They wound their way through the rusted halls. The cryo chamber was as she’d left it: chilly, water dripping from pipes, the windows of pods filled with corpses frosted over. The open one that she’d left stood open, across and one over from the pod that held Nora. She hadn’t, on her way out, opened any of the other pods. Even the idea had felt blasphemous in some way. The only person she’d allowed herself to touch was Nora.

“This is the pod I came out of,” she said, touching the side of the pod.

“But in the memory we went through from Kellogg, you were directly across from your wife,” Nick pointed out.

“Yeah, I know,” she replied. She looked at the pod directly across from Nora. The glass was too frosted to see inside. “I’ll open it.”

“If you think you’re ready.”

“It’s a matter of needing to know,” she said, suddenly bone-deep tired. “Whether or not I’m ready to know doesn’t matter.”

The pod hissed as it opened. The door swung open to reveal herself. Frozen. No scars. Looking upon herself and also not-herself, something akin to resolution settled into her gut. Here was the woman she had taken the name of. Her left ring finger was bare of a wedding ring. She had been wearing it when she left. She’d hidden it in a safe, along with it’s match, under the crib in her house. Everything she’d thought of herself was simultaneously true and untrue. She was a continuing line from the body of the real Hana Littlefeather; her beginning point was a singularly defining moment of this woman’s life, and she had extrapolated herself from that moment of terror to what she was now.

“Damn,” Nick said, very quiet.

“I think we should visit Doctor Amari.” She was just as quiet, and silently closed the pod holding not-herself. “She’s the only person who could have done this. I’m not on record at the Institute. I’m not on record with the Railroad. Someone else did this. Someone else made me.”

“You made you,” Nick stated, looking at her hard. “You begin, and you make yourself. The things you’ve done are yours. Your thoughts are yours. You belong to you, and you’re a damn good person. Doesn’t matter what you are.”

She smiled softly. “I know, Nick. Don’t worry. I know who I am. I just want to know why I am, I suppose.”

He returned the smile. “I understand. Let’s visit Amari, then. Maybe she’ll have some answers.”

*

Hancock watched her pack her bag through narrowed eyes. “Where ya goin’?”

“Goodneighbor,” she answered. “I have to visit the Memory Den.”

“You plannin’ on lettin’ me in on this secret mission you an’ Nick are on anytime soon?” He asked, voice thick with suspicion.

“I will,” she said slowly. Her eyes were focused on her bag. Feelings welled in her throat. She could remember Diamond City. In the mayor’s office, overlooking it all, McDonough unveiled as a synth. The betrayal in Hancock that had become a tidal wave of self-loathing. How he’d spent years hating a man that no longer existed. How his town treated synths that were sent as replacements. It wasn’t his fault. She knew that. But she also didn’t want to lose what they had - or even worse, him altogether. But keeping him in the dark could do it just the same as telling him. Is it better to lose someone to lies or to the truth?

“Look, if you’re tryin’ to let me know you don’t want this anymore, that’s fine -” his voice suggested otherwise, “- I would just appreciate a head’s up so I can drink myself stupid for a reason other than you just sitting quiet at a window.”

Her head snapped up so she could look at him. “I’m not - I didn’t mean - I know I haven’t… been very here, for the past week. But that doesn’t mean I’m not in love with you anymore. I’m just… I found out something, about myself, which is something I’ve been thinking is a possibility for a while but I just found out it’s true. And I want to tell you, but I don’t know if you’ll be mad, or upset, but I know you’re already both. I just wanted. Answers. Before I said anything. I’m sorry.”

His brow furrowed, and his voice was less harsh the next time he spoke. “Hey, you can tell me anything. You know that. I - sorry, for jumping to the worst possible conclusion, but we’re together in this. In everything.”

“I know. I know that,” she replied. “Okay. Alright. So, I went back to the Vault with Nick. Because I realized I only had one memory from before the War. And Nick’s brother, DiMA, at Far Harbor, said that was a sign. Of being a synth. So I went back to the Vault, to… see if I could find some proof. If… the real Hana would be there. And… she was, John. She… was there, and dead, and I’m a synth. I’m… not human.”

“Neither am I,” Hancock pointed out. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her close, kissed her neck. Rubbed small circles in her back. “Doesn’t matter what you are. You’re Hana. You’re my sunshine. _My_ sunshine. Synth or not. I’ve only known you, not her. So… let me hitch a ride on this mystery with you. I’m shit at solving puzzles, but I’ll hold your hand.”

“I love you,” she mumbled into the shoulder of his jacket. It was musty and smelled like history but also like drugs and gun powder. She had come to associate it with Hancock. It wasn’t so bad. Or, it was, but she could tolerate it.

“Love you, too, sunshine,” he said. He then chuckled. “I was so worked up thinkin’ you wanted to leave me that I’m, like, super relieved. Probably not what you were expectin’ me to feel like, but I honestly don’t care what you are. Just want you to stay with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere, so don’t worry.” She pulled away, kissed him gently on the mouth. “Let’s not keep Nick waiting. Gotta ask Amari what she knows.”

*

Goodneighbor was just beginning to come alive when they got there. The day was turning into night, and the string lights were twinkling in place of the stars that couldn’t be seen among the buildings. Drifters and residents cheered upon catching sight of Hancock, who gave them limp waves and a, “Hey, everyone!”

The first time that Hana had been here, she had been wearing the Minutemen’s General coat. She’d wrapped cloth around the lower half of her face to keep out dust, had been wearing sunglasses, and that hat. She had worn it because it’d been ridiculous, and had made her laugh. After she’d talked Finn down at the gates, and after Hancock had stabbed him, he’d looked her up and down and said to her, “Nice hat, sister.”

And even later, she’d hacked Bobbi No-Noses’ terminal as the woman left for Diamond City, and downloaded her plan, and brought it to Hancock. Had handed him the holotape and said, “Bobbi wants to get into your strongroom for some reason and hired me to help. I’m really not a criminal, and the only reason I even said yes was because I wanted to make sure she wasn’t planning on hurting anyone. So, uh, here you go?”

And he’d looked at her again, like he had before, but different. “You’re too good for Goodneighbor.” He’d said it like it was both a good and bad thing. Like he’d never met someone like her.

She had never felt like it was a true statement - she wasn’t too good for anywhere. And wherever she went, she wanted to leave it in a better state than it had been before. Maybe she had even done that, here. Maybe dressing up like the Silver Shroud had done something. And she had thought that she’d helped Amari by upgrading her computers and giving her medical supplies - but now with the possibility that Amari had been pretending not to know her the whole time hanging over her head as it was, it felt like a hollow victory.

The Memory Den was as classy as Goodneighbor could manage to be, although it walked the thin line between class and gaudiness. They nodded to Irma before they headed down to the basement where Amari worked.

Nick knocked on the doorjamb before they entered, getting Amari’s attention from where she was over her series of terminals.

“Oh! Nick, Miss Littlefeather, hello,” she greeted. Then she saw Hancock and raised her eyebrows. “And the mayor. What can I do for you today?”

“I have a question for you, Doctor, and I’d like you to be absolutely truthful with me,” she said seriously.

Amari hesitated, and it showed on her face, and after a moment she schooled her face back into pleasant neutrality. “I’ll answer as best I can, of course.”

Hana nodded. “I’d like to know why you pretended to not know me when I came here with Nick to go through Kellogg’s memories. When you programmed me with the memories and name I have now.”

Amari took a deep breath. “You must understand, it was you who came here and asked me to do so. Or, the person you once were. She had brought a brain scan that she’d had a friend of hers get for her from Vault 111. I told her it was incomplete, but she requested that I continue. The man that she’d come with took her… you, at that point, I suppose, with him when he left.”

Hana nodded. “Alright. So… I was made by myself. Or, unmade and remade as someone else. The Railroad does that sometimes, but they don’t usually use scans of other people. And I know that they didn’t have anything to do with this. I’m fairly certain that they’d have recognized me if that was the case.”

“Well, you look identical to the actual Hana Littlefeather,” Nick said. “She likely had her face modeled after her before becoming who you are now.”

“Whoever did it did a good job,” Hancock offered in an appraising tone. Hana elbowed him in the side and he chuckled.

“Do you know the man who came with her? Who took me, after everything was done, back to the Vault?” Hana asked. “I mean, whoever it was didn’t even put me back in the right cryo pod. He put me in the pod right next to the real Hana. Was that on purpose? An oversight? I have to know. He has to know why I did what I did, why I became what I am now.”

“I never caught his name,” Amari said with a shake of her head. “But I’ve seen him since. In that last memory of Kellogg’s, at his apartment. The Courser that took that child back to the Institute.”

“What?” Hana said, feeling suddenly dizzy. She stepped back, brought a hand up to her temple where the beginning of a headache was forming. “That… Essex?”

Hancock had a hand at her back to steady her before she needed to ask. He lead her to a chair, where she sat, confused. It somehow hit more than seeing a corpse with the same face had. X6 knew. X6 was at Sanctuary with the child synth version of Ahyoka, her daughter, acting as a babysitter. X6, the man she had helped escape the Institute with those he also knew among the Coursers to want freedom, and who in turn had helped her overtake the Institute and bring it under Minuteman control. The man who had renamed himself Essex in the aftermath.

“Guess we should head back to Sanctuary,” Nick said. “Ask him about this. Gonna give him a piece of my mind, keepin’ somethin’ like this to himself. You had a right to know. You have a right to know.”

“I don’t like him,” Hancock said stiffly. “Knew there was a reason for it.”

“You don’t like him because he eats all the snack cakes and then you can never have one when you’re high and hungry, John,” Hana said with a sigh. “He’s a good person. I’m assuming the reasoning is… good. Hopefully. Or it was part of a revenge plot. Or maybe he was just helping who I was before, helping her escape. Like how the Railroad does.”

“He doesn’t even _like_ the Railroad,” Hancock said, throwing his hands up in the air. “It’s a miracle he hasn’t thrown a fit and tried to kill everyone in Sanctuary.”

“He trusts me,” she answered. “Trusts that I can do the right thing for the Commonwealth. He wouldn’t tell anyone else that, I don’t think. Just because he’s a little terse doesn’t mean he doesn’t support and protect other synths.”

*

“Mommy!” Ahyoka threw her arms around her the moment she entered the house.

“Hey, there, bug,” Hana answered, returning the hug. “I have to talk to Uncle Essex for a bit, so how about you go play with Dogmeat and Junkyard for a bit?”

“Alright!” She ran out of the house like a bat out of hell, laughing as she did.

Essex was sitting at the kitchen table delicately pulling a snack cake apart into piles of frosting and cake. “Hello, ma’am. How was your journey?”

“It was good, Essex, thanks,” she answered at the same time Hancock yelled, “You’ve known this whole goddamn time!”

Nick sighed and leaned against the kitchen counter as he watched Hancock wearily. “You’d never make it as a cop, Hancock.”

“I’m a _mayor,”_ he shot back, crossing his arms. “The only mystery I have to solve is which fist I’m gonna throw first.”

Essex seemed to be blinking slowly at Hancock from behind his sunglasses. “Please forgive me, but I’m slightly lost as to what this is about.”

“I know I’m a synth, Essex,” Hana said, tone gentle. “And Amari said you were the one who took me from the Memory Den after she replaced my memories. I just want to know why.”

“I see,” he said. “I have a holotape, actually. Written by you. Or rather, who you were. I believe she planned for this eventuality. Banked on it, even. I’ve never been fully aware of all her reasons, but those that she confided in me were good enough that I agreed.

“Her name was Whisper, designation D3-7R. A fellow Courser. A good one, as well. We worked together on several missions; she always worked to have the conclusion of her missions aid those that she recaptured. She taught me how to help the other synths without getting caught myself. She was a good friend, and she was close enough to Mother to know her plans to wake her own mother up. Whisper worried that this new factor could end unfavorably for us. That a Pre-War influence could cause more problems for synths. And so she wanted to assure that whomever was brought into the fold would endeavor to do the best they could by us.

“Before Mother woke the Vault up once more, I went to the Vault for her and scanned the brain of Hana Littlefeather. She was, just like everyone else in the Vault, dead. It seemed that at some point, after Kellogg had left and put everyone back to sleep, the cryogenics system had broken down and failed. I also took pictures of her face, so Whisper could change what she looked like. Then we had Doctor Amari reprogram her. We had been told that the dead brain hadn’t had much left to scan, but we still went through with it. Left some important parts of Whisper, like her drive to help synths, and the knowledge that you could trust me.

“You’re not the same as her. You’re very different. Your personality has hints of her, but you are your own. I am sorry for the deception, but there was never a point where I believed you would accept the information without becoming upset. Given that the Institute is now under your control, and the synths that work and live there are free to leave as they wish to, I believe that Whisper would be content with what you’ve done. I am, at the very least.”

Hana nodded. “I’d love to see the holotape, though. I’m sure there are things on there that will better help me understand. I can get that she wanted to help synths, but I can’t understand giving oneself up entirely to do so.”

Essex reached into his coat, and from and inside pocket pulled a holotape. “I have not looked at it, out of respect for her. I believe that this was meant for your eyes, and your eyes only.”

“Thank you.”

Hancock made a thoughtful noise. “I guess I’m sorry for threatening to punch you. But stop eating all the goddamn snack cakes, man, you eat them weird and there’s never any left when I got the munchies.”

“I will continue to eat all of them however I want,” Essex said unperturbed. “Goodbye.”

Hancock snorted and then grumbled, “You’re a jackass. Only so many snack cakes in this world and you’re sittin’ on a throne of empty boxes.”

“Hancock, leave him be,” Hana chided.

“You want to look at that holotape alone, kid?” Nick asked. He’d been quiet, listening to the story and observing.

Hana considered that for a moment. “I think that’s likely for the best.”

He nodded. “Alright. I’m gonna head down to the Red Rocket and pick up some more ammo and stimpacks for our return trip to the Harbor. You want me to tell Preston that we’re goin’ back out soon?”

She stood and returned his nod. “Please do. I’m sure he’s not very fond of being in charge of the entirety of the Minutemen, but we do need to return and finish out this case.”

“I’d come along, but I can only handle so much seafood,” Hancock said. “So you two have fun with your fishing trip, or whatever.” He stood on tip-toe and kissed her on the lips. “Bring home a souvenir for me, love.”

“Sure thing. I’ll see you before we go, though,” Hana said with a smile.

*

The holotape was a recording. She found a private place to listen, and settling down, plugged it into her pip-boy.

A voice crackled to life. “This is Whisper, and if you’re listening to this, that means you’re me. Or, you’re some sneaky piece of shit who thought to go through my personal belongings, in which case: Fuck You. With that out of the way, I am now going to explain my own motives to myself who no longer knows them.

“I hate the Institute. I loathe Mother. I know X6 doesn’t feel the same, that he believes in what the Institute does. I don’t. The whole lot of them are vile. They make us, they make perfect replicates of humanity, and then treat us like machines. We’re more than that. We are people. People who were born in less conventional ways, yes, but we are people. Fuck anyone who doesn’t believe that. We are valid. We are fucking valid.

“Mother wants to wake her mother up. Doesn’t know that she’s dead along with everyone else in the Vault. Kellogg fucked it when he went. Did something, or the scientist with him did something. Either way, they’re all dead. She can’t wake her mother up because she’s fucking dead. Probably because the cryo pods weren’t made to keep being turned off and on again. It’s delicate shit.

“The one thing that I can think of that would be the most poetic justice against Mother is what I am about to do. I will become her mother. I will be welcomed into the Institute. I will free the synths. Mother will see me, as her own mother, and know that I’m a synth.

“What kind of horror will she experience upon discovering her own mother is synthetic? What kind of reaction will she have, knowing that the woman she thought would save the Institute will bring it down? I want that fear. I want Mother to die knowing that her own mother was what she loathed most.

“This is why I did what I did. Nothing more, nothing less. I told X6 I wanted to save the synths, that I wanted what was best for the Institute. What I want is it’s complete and utter annihilation at my own hands, whether I’m aware of those hands or not.

“This is Whisper, signing off.”

Hana, feeling numb, popped the holotape out. “Talk about not having benevolent motives,” she muttered.

Mother had died not even suspecting that the woman she called “mother” was a synth. She died only with the knowledge that her own mother was taking over control of the Institute and opening it to the Commonwealth as a center of learning and salvation. She had been appalled for entirely different reasons. She had died in an Institute where synths were free to leave. In an Institute under the control of the Minuteman General, who operated as a Railroad operative. Perhaps not the series of circumstances that her former self wished for, but it was what occurred.

To her, this outcome was better than what Whisper had wanted. This way, the technology of the Institute was available for all who needed it. This way, synths were still free. And this way, the reign of terror of the Institute kidnapping and replacing people had ended. Synth production had been ceased, forever. The remaining research was dedicated purely to rebuilding the Commonwealth and making it safe and clean.

After a moment of consideration, she brought the holotape down to the corner of a table hard enough to pop it open. She pried the tape out of it, pulled it apart, ripped it up.

She was not who she had been.

She was who she was.

Who she was, was different and better.

She was herself.

And she could move forward.


End file.
